


His First Time

by kitsune13tamlin



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender, Voltron: Vehicle Force (1984)
Genre: Bisexual Shiro (Voltron), F/M, Shiro (Voltron)-centric, Vehicle Voltron, very very fictional S&M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-06-06
Packaged: 2020-02-04 15:51:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsune13tamlin/pseuds/kitsune13tamlin
Summary: set in the 'Its Only What He Deserves' universe.  It all started when detective Shirogane of the homicide squad needed to catch a killer.  The only problem?  The killer was preying on people from S&M clubs and no one wanted to talk to a cop.  The solution?  Go undercover and for that he needed someone to both teach him how to act and to take him through the ins and outs of the dungeon scene.  A bit of research brought him to Lisa, a retired dominatrix, who, after she shut the door in his face the first time, finally agreed to be both his teacher and his guide.He didn't have a problem with the lessons or the outfits.  His problem - was that he was starting to enjoy it.





	1. Chapter 1

The leather creaked as he shifted and he tried not to admit that he enjoyed the sound of it on a visceral level.

“This isn’t over the top?” he asked all the same and dark eyes turned to him from the back seat.  Smiled, something an old blood red that curved one side of her lips and made her look more dangerous than friendly, knowledgeable and secretive.

And as tempting as every bad promise he’d ever wanted to make.  He wasn't sure he was as settled with her current look as he wanted himself to be.

He was used to her ‘librarian’ look, used to responding to her in that light, because that was how she'd always dressed during their training sessions.  Lisa had a face that completely carried the 'strict and disapproving school teacher' look and she used it mercilessly during their sessions, clipping him right down to the core where he was still a child who wanted to be acknowledged for doing his best in a way his adult brain hadn't found a defense against.  The adult part of him though - the adult part of his brain had quickly become completely fixated on the proper way she dressed during training sessions.  Buttoned up and perfectly tailored, white starch men’s blouse and sleek close fit pencil skirt, dark hair piled up on her head, darker eyes hidden behind slim eyeglasses, all cat tipped poise and utter control over the clip of her patent leather heels and the single gold charm that fastened the black strap of them at her ankle.  He’d spent a lot of time staring at that gold charm from floor level the past month and a half, as it caught the light and lost it again as it swayed against her pale leg.  He knew it was business, for both of them, but he’d be lying if he said he’d never woken up hard and aching from dreams of those heels against his skin.

He tried not to think about what that probably said about him.

Now she watched him from the back seat and there was no glass between her eyes and him.  All that careful long hair of hers was loose around her, looking as if someone had just gotten done running their fingers through it and the dark make up, smoky around her eyes made them even darker as they watched him.  But the look was the same.  Calm.  Patient.  Weighing his question and him as he asked it.

He was allowed to ask questions though, in private at least.  She encouraged it, teaching the old fashioned way as much as she introduced him to a very new way of learning and now she hummed, half cast in shadows from street lights and neon club signs as they drove.  He broke eye contact through the rear view mirror as the light changed and he focused on the road again.

“You’ll be wearing more than most,” her voice was low, throaty, and he wondered, for just a second, why she’d quit the scene in the first place and if it bothered her, having to come back to it now.  Except:

“If you’re uncomfortable, there are alternatives that will cover more.”

“No,” he answered it, perhaps just a bit too quickly and was glad that he’d learned a long time ago how to hide embarrassment.  Not at the outfit - at the fact he

enjoyed it.

The pants were tight.  Skin tight.  Some kind of flexible leather or something that dug up into him a little bit, just enough to make him aware of the tension pressing against his cock and balls, the way it cupped his ass almost intimately.  And the top was - it was sleeves and straps.  It left his back and chest exposed and then covered both his arms all the way down to his wrists in close black leather. To hide his prosthetic.  He hadn’t asked her for that, but somehow she had known, the way he was finding she intuited far too much about him easily, how vulnerable having it exposed to strangers made him feel and picked an outfit for him that hide it entirely, topped off with black gloves to do the rest.  He felt a bit self-conscious about the scars on his body, though he’d be given to understand that scars were a thing in the crowd they were going to join soon - but it was the fact that the straps holding the sleeves on his arms that ran across his chest were just a little too tight, pushed his pecs just a little together and dug in just enough to press bothered him more.

Because he was really enjoying that teasing sensation and he was just as sure he shouldn’t be.

The boots at least were comfortable with good traction.  And the thick heavy metal collar around his throat was - something he was getting used to even if he didn’t entirely enjoy it.  There was no leash attached to the front ring of it at least. 

She said she never used leashes.  The point was to not need them.

Lisa sat still and unmoving, unnaturally so, in the back seat but he was used to that from her by now.  She had stillness like some people had breathing control and he sometimes wondered where she’d learned it.  Who’d taught her to be so still for such long amounts of time and why.

If it had always been one of the tools in her arsenal or if it had once been a submissive lesson of her own.

“Here,” the low voice from the back seat again and he responded, turning the car down the indicated side street.  Heavy neon ran along on either side of them, reflected in the recent rain puddles like oil on water, slick and transent, sliding like slow ghost fingers over the dark paint of the car.  Half the clubs were behind iron wrought doors but each one thumped out its heartbeat bass onto the street and the hurrying crowds passing in front.  This wasn’t the uptown night club scene where people went to see and be seen.  There was no glitter, no glamour here.  The people slipping into the nightclubs and bars and massage parlors weren’t interested in being seen.  This wasn’t about being recognized.  It was about having a need that only the dark holes that led into darker interiors could provide and the fewer people that saw you enter the better.  Shiro knew the area because the beat cops avoided it.  These streets had a way of policing themselves and the cops were usually only called in once it was all over.

“He’s not taking them from the uptown clubs,” Lisa said it as if she could read his thoughts.  “He’s taking his victims from here.  The same rules apply though.  Your training with me doesn’t change no matter where we go.”

He slanted her a quick look through the rear view before focusing ahead again, driving slow the way the rest of the trawling traffic on the side street was.

“But there are upscale clubs like this you could take me to?”

Her exhale behind him was answer enough, amused.

“Half the city council and several very prominent business men, and women, would never be caught dead in a place like this.  Even when they’re crawling, they like to think their surroundings matter.”

He wanted to ask but he knew better and didn’t.  Lisa didn’t talk about past clients.  No matter how curious he sometimes felt to know who else had felt her touch and been ‘taught’ by her.

“Here,” she said it again.  “On the left.  The club with the purple neon.  There’s parking down that side alley.”

He gave the club a quick once over, for a long moment nothing but a cop, focusing on entries and exits and vulnerable points in the building

before he turned the car down the alley and found the parking slots, coasting the rented car into one of them where he’d have easy access to it from the club if he needed it.  Old habits died hard.  Especially when you didn’t see any reason to kill them.

“Bad lighting,” he murmured.

“Not everyone wants to be seen,” she murmured back but they both knew that the shoddy lighting in the dim lot just made it that much easier to get away with getting someone into a car to take them to a secondary scene.  Someone moved in the shadows though, sending his senses flaring in alarm until he saw it was a bouncer.  Lisa hummed.

“Word’s getting around about the killings.  Looks like there’s security.”

“Or a potential job for the killer,” he turned off the car and got out of the driver’s seat, straightening up to his full height, rolling his shoulders as unobtrusively as he could to work flexibility into them.  The security guard met his eyes, gave a nod and settled back onto the seat he’d been sitting in next to the ice chest cooler and radio.  He, at least, was allowed to wear normal clothes, even if the muscles on him were threatening to pop his black polo shirt wide open at the seams.  Shiro turned and got the door for Lisa, holding out his hand for hers as she rose.

There was no proper librarian in sight.

Lisa’s long legs seemed to go on forever as she slide them out, wrapped in a red leather heeled boots as dark as her lipstick and a mini skirt that gleamed like oil and followed the subtle curves of her body just as closely.  The rest of her followed, all sleek, slow predator that knew you’d never run, much less fast enough, to escape , lean body wrapped in more blood leather and silver chain, bare shoulders like chipped moonlight, high collar like armor, arms wrapped in black leather that matched his, nails tipped red to black like the rest of her.  Shiro knew women that knew how to make the most of their charms with the least amount of clothing but Lisa wrapped herself like every Christmas present you’d ever wanted all rolled together your entire life.  All the things you wanted and weren’t allowed to open.  Shiro personally favored the librarian look more - but he wasn’t about to deny that seeing her in tight red leather and straps, with her red smeared mouth and careless hair didn’t give him all kinds of thoughts he had to push down hard to keep from growing in the back of his brain.  And lower

She let him help her out of the car not because she needed it but because of course he would rush to serve her - and she would deign to let him.  He knew it was all pretend, that this was only acting and yet, after over a month of training, a part of him still reacted with need.  The need to please her, the need to serve, to do whatever she told him to.  He’d never in his life bowed to anyone - or anything - and yet giving Lisa full control of himself and his world was so addictive.  He worried, when he was alone in his own apartment late at night and couldn’t avoid it anymore, about how good it felt and how much he enjoyed it and what that said about him and how broken inside he must be.  She left her hand in his, like a gift and he shut the door and offered her the keys in his other open palm, head bowed.  The truth was he had nowhere to keep them in this outfit.  He honestly didn’t know where she had to keep things either but she took the keys and they disappeared somewhere on her.  She reached up, took the ring of his collar and tugged him down and he went, already flexing his knees, prepared to go as low as she wanted him to.  And it was so comfortable to let her make that decision, so welcome.  He kept telling himself it was only an act and that he’d have no problem leaving this all behind once they caught the killer he was hunting.

There was always the buried thread of panic inside him when he realized he didn’t believe that anymore.

She only drew him down low enough to press her lips to his forehead, staining his skin with the mark of her kiss against it and he only imagined that it burned long after her mouth had left him.  Her voice was low and throaty, the one she used at the end of a session.

“Good boy.”

And then, softer and quieter, for his ears only, she added:

“You know your training.  I know you won’t fail me.  For tonight, forget it isn’t real.  Tonight, you are mine and everything is real between us.  The only one you have to focus on is me.”

She let go of his collar and he straightened.  Looked down at her, standing so close to him and met her dark eyes.   _ _I will not let you fall,__  they promised him.  And despite himself, he believed her.

“There’s only you,” he told her and it sounded more real to his ears than anything else he’d said in a long time.  She smiled for him, one of her smiles that said he had made her happy and he felt the way his heart swelled in his chest, pleasure and pride in the achievement.  He let himself be weak and he didn’t try to fight the feeling this time.  Her fingers reached up and tousled his bangs, messing them up and she slipped her other hand out of his as she stepped away.

“Good.”

He shut her car door and followed her confident stride up the alley and into the dark maw of the night club’s entrance.


	2. Chapter 2

The music was a jungle beat, spilling out of the doorway, down the short hallway that led them both inward and downward from the outside sidewalk and it went crawling under Shiro’s skin before the packed heat of the club even touched him.  Another bouncer stood up just outside the inner door, dressed like the one in the parking lot and Shiro wondered if that many muscles was a part of the uniform, as standard as the polo shirt and combat pants.  And then Lisa tipped her head and her dark hair fell away from the edges of her face and Shiro watched the bouncer’s eyes light up seconds before a real smile spread across his blocky face.

“Miss Lisa,” he bowed his head.  It wasn’t a simple acknowledging nod, it was a full out expose the neck, subjugate move.  Even his shoulders dropped, as if he’d be on his knees if he wasn’t on duty.  Shiro knew better than to react but his eyes focused a bit sharper on the woman in front of him.  He’d known she came highly recommended, he knew she was retired and he knew from personal experience how professional and in complete control, never caught off guard or hesitating she was as a teacher.  But this?  This was that past of hers she never talked about and he’d respected her too much to dig through his own sources for.  She took the bouncer’s tribute as calmly and smoothly as if that kind of thing was natural and her fingertips touched his shoulder, light pressure and gone, acknowledgement of her rank but of his worth as well.  Then she was past, blood and black, hair swaying down her back to match her hips, striding through the door and into the club and Shiro was falling into step at her back, taking his place.  He could feel the eyes of the bouncer on him all the way through the door, until the room angled and took him out of sight.

Lisa didn’t pause at the entrance and so he couldn’t either, following her and shifting over to walk at her heel, just behind.  It didn’t give him time to case the room and inside of him alarm flared.  He needed to know where the exits were, where the windows were, where the corners of the room were and how fast he could reach any of them.  But Lisa’s clipped stride didn’t give him time to concentrate on anything but following her, especially with the room as packed as it was, full of writhing, dancing, crawling bodies and flashing lighting that left things darker than they naturally would be each time the brilliance snapped off.  What Shiro did see, in his first impression, was skin.  A lot of skin.  Leather and latex came next but - Lisa hadn’t been exaggerating in the least when she’d said he’d be wearing more than most.  The air smelled like sweat and leather, perfume and cologne, alcohol and heat - and blood.  He picked up the scent, threaded through all the others and his hand instinctively went forward, flattened against Lisa’s hip and he wasn’t sure if it was a protective move or a questioning one.  The slick leather of her skirt was as warm as skin under his palm.  Without breaking stride, she reached back and hooked a finger unerringly through the ring on his collar, somehow not even having to fumble for it in the flashing dark.  It drew his head down to her and he had to concentrate to keep from stepping on her heels and still giving her his head.

“Left corner,” between her low voice and the noise he almost missed her words even as close to her as he was and he trusted her to guide their walking as his eyes flicked in the direction she’d indicated.

Lisa didn’t draw blood with him.  And the only bruises she left on him were the ones they had both agreed to beforehand.  Those were rare.  More for his curiosities sake than as an actual part of their lessons.  Restraint and release had proved to be both more effective on him - and more what he craved.  He knew there were other methods, and other people that enjoyed them when it came to this lifestyle - but he’d gotten so used to Lisa’s touch that -

For a moment the scene in the corner had his muscles tensing, automatic response, need to step in and put a stop to it - but Lisa shifted the slightest bit, threw off his automatic walk behind her so that he almost collided with her and snapped him back.  The crack of riding crops, the ball gags, the X-frame binding - that was consensual.  The blood play - that was consensual.  He grunted and Lisa’s finger slipped from the ring of his collar, brushed the side of his throat, cool in the heat of the club and he felt his pulse relax in response.  He straightened, kept up with her pace, but his eyes slid back to the corner as they crossed the room, a strange mix of fascination and aversion at the expressions that slipped over the faces there in the flaring dark of the corner over the trickles of blood on skin and latex.  It made him long - strangely - for the way Lisa would sometimes cradle his face in her hands after one of their sessions had left him empty and exhausted, as if he was the most precious thing in the entire universe.

They passed the bar, all lit up with neon, half light that cast darker shadows on the men and women working behind it in their fetish gear, straps and studs and not much else.  Shiro had, in the past week while they’d been working on their planning their first foray into dungeon crawling, figured out that there was a difference between fetish wear and intentional S&M gear.  Straps and chains and leather or latex were all a part of both but there was a certain - functional - nature to S&M gear.  What was behind the bar wasn’t meant to be functional.  Some of what he saw on the dance floor and in the booths against the wall certainly was.

On the far side of the bar was a spiral set of iron stairs and Lisa climbed them easily despite her heels and skirt.  Shiro stayed close but took the moment to scan the room below.  Somehow - he hadn’t expected there to be this many people into this - particular lifestyle.

“Most of them are tourists,” Lisa spoke in front of him, voice toned to be heard past the music below.  “Swingers and college kids, people testing the waters or just into the clothes.  People dabbling at the edges of the lifestyle, playing pretend for the night.”

“No one minds?”

Her hair whisked across her bare back, played shadows and light with her pale skin and she stepped off the last stair and to the side.

“No.  Better they do it here where there are rules in place to keep everyone safe.  Besides, it helps pay the bills and some of them might decide they want to find out what the lifestyle is really like.”

She’d come to a stop so he did too once he cleared the stairs, standing at her back and looking over her.  And some of the wound tense alarm inside him relaxed, just a little.

Upstairs was apparently a much more private and exclusive world than the one below even if Shiro hadn’t seen any guard at the foot of the stairs to weed people out.  Here there was no pumping music, no packed bodies filling a dance floor.  The din from downstairs was still there, like a heartbeat in his ears but the space gave it some distance, let him hear himself think.  He was sure he imagined it when he thought, without moving at all, he felt Lisa relax, just a little, as well herself.

Upstairs was also smaller, more intimate, little more than a square room with booths set into recesses in the walls, all facing the stage in the center of the room, where the dim lighting showed a cage and someone in a gimp suit inside of it.  In the dark, it was impossible to tell if they were male or female, nothing but a slick shadow figure splayed out on their knees, arms stretched tight across their back, motionless and obediently waiting until they were retrieved.  Shiro knew from experience that they could expect to wait all night that way if that was what was required of them.  He’d done similar himself for Lisa, gotten good at it in fact.  But the thought of doing it with the sensory dulling mask on made his skin crawl and he rolled his shoulders instinctively against it.

Lisa led the way to one of the private niches set into the walls of the room, stepping up onto the low platform of one and then turning with a slow, graceful twirl to settle onto the single cushioned chair set in the center of the niche, subtle showmanship for all the eyes they both knew were avidly watching. She’d chosen them a spot that gave him a good view of the entire room and that let him keep an eye on the stairs and the only entrance to the upper floor.  Shiro felt the relief, and stability, of that position settle in him.  It was defensible as well as giving him the best position to guard against surprises.  And he wondered if her chosen spot was for her - or him.  If it was for him.... not for the first time his instincts told him how dangerous it was for anyone to understand him at such a basic, unspoken level.  How easily they could use his most core tendencies and habits against him.

Except each time that warning flared through him - it was always because Lisa had done something that catered to or protected him from his core needs.  And he didn’t need instinctive warning to tell him that was even more dangerous to him than manipulation or abuse.

Her hand rolled at her side, a single pale move in the dark, catching his second of slipped attention.  The upper room was more soaked in shadows than the lower one but Shiro still saw the gesture and he settled immediately on the floor at her side on his knees, not even needing to consciously make the decision.  Her hand found his hair, combed nails through it and tugged lightly, reassuring him.  He hadn’t forgotten he was here for the murders, but a large part of his mind was also preoccupied with worrying about blowing his cover.  And he was a little concerned, far in the back of his mind where he was busy ignoring it, that his worry over failing had less to do with the investigation and more with failing Lisa’s faith in his ability to carry this off.  Her hand moved from his hair and gave his head a very light nudge.  He took the sign and shifted sideways to rest his head against the side of her thigh.  Her fingers rubbed his temple before stroking the outer shell of his ear and despite himself he inhaled and his eyes slit as the light tease.  Her fingers dropped to stroke his jaw.

“Take a minute to orient,” her voice was pitched low, just for him, little more than a hum of sound at the edge of his hearing and she didn’t tip her face or even look at him, old blood lips barely moving in the dark as she spoke.  “The curious will start arriving soon.  Its been several years since I’ve been active.  This should bring out most of the real players that are here tonight.  Outside of here, no one will acknowledge __how__ they know you but they will know you and they’ll be more open to talking because you’re one of us and their secrets will be safe with you.”  Which was the point.  The whole point of all of this, from beginning to end.  To get him the contacts that would hopefully let him catch the killer before anyone else died.  He never forgot that.  He just felt as if he didn't always remember it as sternly as he was supposed to.  Gentle her nails scratched through the short hair at the back of his neck.  “Just remember:” her voice dropped a half note lower.  “Here, you are mine.  No one is allowed to touch you but me.  I am the only one you are required to be submissive to.  Respond any way you feel is necessary to anyone that attempts otherwise.”  Her finger slipped between his skin and the collar on his throat and it put a light pressure against his breathing.  “This is not a nice place.  You do not have to be either.  The collar is only for me.  You hold your own leash.  Be dangerous, my heart.”

He knew better than to respond to the love name.  Lisa sometimes slipped those in, usually when she was praising him or during the aftercare when a session was finished.  If he reacted, she’d stop using them for weeks - and he liked it when she forgot enough to use them for him.  He knew she didn’t mean them the way most people would - but he still craved them and hoarded the affection in them each time she forgot and called him something intimate and precious.

He knew it was just another indication that he probably had a lot to work through if a shrink ever got a hold of him - but he still didn’t want her to stop calling him love names.

“The killer’s taken two of his victims from here,” he kept his voice low, muffled it more by turning his face to nuzzle her thigh, half warm leather, half cooler skin, and felt her fingers leave the collar to curl in his hair in response.

“We’ll find out when they put the guard on parking lot duty and compare the dates.  See if the second one happened before or after,” she murmured back, mind moving closely enough with his to anticipate.  And then her head turned, slow and unconcerned,  as someone strode past the raised cage, making no effort to hide the fact they were headed straight toward her.  Straight toward them.  Shiro kept his head where it was and watched.

It was a woman, tall and sleek with a great dark mane of hair that haloed her and skin so dark it was almost black.  She looked like she’d been dipped in latex, shiny and oil slick from her throat to her wrists to her ankles and there was no hesitation in the way she moved.  She reminded Shiro of police dogs on duty, german shepherds and doberman pincers, clean muscled and sure of themselves and where they belonged in the world.  Dangerous without the need to pretend they weren’t.

“Meg,” Lisa’s voice had changed, suddenly her ‘daily’ voice, and the woman that had been approaching broke into a wide white smile, closing the last few steps to swoop in and lean low.  Lisa’s hand left Shiro and she wrapped both arms around the other woman and, as awkward as the bent over hug must have been, both women held it for a long time, low throaty sounds from Lisa and tongue clicks from the other before Meg finally drew back.  Her dark eyes immediately shifted to fix on Shiro, at Lisa’s side and he looked back without lifting his head, watching her the way she watched him.  Measuring.  Both of them deciding if they should bristle at the other one from being so close to Lisa or not.

“He has pretty eyes,” Meg finally decided, giving him a slow nod of approval and Shiro told himself he was supposed to feel like someone’s prize steer, not pleased as if he’d passed some kind of inspection. “No wonder you’re training him to focus them instead of averting.  You always know how to flaunt someone’s best.”  Meg flicked a long boned hand and from the booth she’d left two men in nothing but strategic leather straps rushed forward with a seat for her they set down quickly near Lisa’s.  A casual flick of the same hand sent them both away again, retreating into the dark of the previous booth.  Meg sat and Lisa reached out with her free hand to touch her shoulder, pale skin against dark.  Meg leaned into it and smiled again, quieter and softer but her midnight eyes were sharp.

“What are you doing here, __mon coeur__?  I’ve never known you to change your mind when you’ve set it.”

“I owed a favor,” Lisa’s hand stroked over Shiro’s hair, carding the bangs aside even if she didn’t look at him.  Meg did, reassessing, eyes moving down his body and Shiro kept himself still so he wouldn’t twitch.  Meg frowned, deeply, and for a second he thought he’d done something and tipped their hand.  Except:

“This is a bad time to come back.  Someone is using our clubs for a hunting ground.  You have to know.”

“Who are they taking?” it was answer enough.  Meg’s frown shifted, went tight across her hidden teeth.

“Not us.  Not the _ _real__  us.  We keep eyes on each other.  No one is missing.  The killer is taking fringe, not serious players.”  Her eyes went back to Shiro, thoughtful and - he thought, surprised - that he saw worry in them.  For him.  Meg looked back at Lisa.  “Is he free or contracted?”

Lisa’s hand stroked over his head again and then shifted.  A flick of her finger and he knew, responded before he was really thinking about it, very real training kicking in to have him curling into himself, resting his forehead against the ground at the base of her heel, his palm against it on the other side, settling in to wait, as long as she wanted to keep him bowed.  It did absolutely nothing to block his ears.  She was simply showing off his training, how low he could bow, how long he could hold still.  He knew he was good at this, so it didn't worry him.  His mind jumped elsewhere while his body held still.  So the killer was taking regulars then.  His team hadn’t been able to tell for sure, considering how private most people in this lifestyle tended to keep it even from family and friends.  Whoever their killer was, with the number of victims, they had to be intentionally avoiding the regulars - or the regulars did something that kept them from being easy prey or else were too recognizable and leaving with one of them might be noticed.  It brought up new speculation, but it answered some of the old as well.   

“He’s still training,” Lisa was answering, talking about him and it focused his attention back on the conversation.  “Once he’s done, he’ll be free to chose his own master and make his own contract.”

“It might be wise to keep him training until things are safe.”

“You think the killer one of us?”

There was the sound of latex shifting.  Meg’s voice, rough at its edges.

“You know some of us play rougher.  Some of us find power in pain.  We are all monsters waiting to happen.  It could be one of us.  But everyone still has their regular subs.  And it would be hard for one of us to pick up that many people and not be noticed at it by someone in our group.  Particularly out of places like this.”

“Easy to slip someone a card and meet them somewhere else later.  Was the bouncer in the parking lot before or after the last one?”

“Before.  He doesn’t remember seeing the man that got killed but you know how it is.  Most people leaving here don’t want to be seen and that is if he left by a car from that lot.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought too,” Lisa murmured and Shiro heard leather brush latex.  Meg clicked her tongue somewhere in the back of her teeth and her voice went soft.  And very very softly dangerous sounding.

“Something is hunting in our hunting grounds.  That is not to be born.  No one will watch after us, even the fringe of us, but ourselves.  No one else cares.  They think it is good ‘people like us’ are being punished for our sins.”  In the dark, her voice shifted, went sleek and sharp.  “Only we are allowed to punish ourselves for our sins.”


End file.
